“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV)
Today, here in America, we live in a “tiktok” generation where everything keeps getting shorter and shorter and shorter. The truth, righteousness, holiness, godliness, moral purity, the character of God, the character of HIS church, and the character of HIS gospel message are all being shortened. They are all being diluted and altered to make them more acceptable to the people of the world. But the shorter they get, the more they are lacking in truth, the truth that is greatly missing and greatly needed in our time.
Now “short” doesn’t always mean lacking in truth and righteousness. The Lord gives me songs and poems and memes to write, too, which are definitely shorter than these devotions which he also gives me to write. And they can convey the truth, too. But one of the dangers of teaching the Scriptures in too short of words can be that the words are taken out of context, and they can be twisted to say what they don’t say if they are taught in their full context. So sometimes we need more explanation.
But I think we need to ask ourselves the question, “Why do things keep getting shorter and shorter?” I have even noticed that some (or many) music artists are doing these “short” videos where they sing only a small portion of their songs, and not the whole song. Why is that? Why has “short” become so popular today, and anything of any length at all is being rejected as “too long”? Are we humans now not capable any more of reading anything beyond a paragraph or more?
But, again, I think we should ask ourselves why everything is getting shorter. What purpose does it serve? Well, the purpose could be good, but the purpose could be evil. But I see a greater risk for evil than for good because the shorter the message is the more it is lacking in depth and the easier it is to deceive. And, personally, I believe that is the purpose, not that it is your purpose, but that whoever has marketed “shorter” is “better” has not a good purpose in mind, especially according to the evidence at hand.
For we now live in a generation, again, where the character of God and of his church and of his gospel are all being shortened and altered to make them more acceptable to the people of the world. And so we see a lot of memes and other forms of short gospel messages which, by their shortness, cut the necessary elements of the gospel short, while they say what itching ears want to hear and what makes people feel good emotionally, and what appeases human flesh and what attracts the ungodly of the world.
But we who are to present the truth of the gospel need to present the truth of the gospel and not cut the message so short that it is lacking in the necessary elements of the gospel message. For I hear or read so many messages which are all about the goodness of God and what he has done and what he will do for us, which is good, but while they leave out entirely what is required of us in the way of repentance and walks of obedience and holiness and surrender to our Lord as Master of our lives.
And so many of these shorter messages willfully take Scriptures out of their context in order to distort what they say, and to teach what they do not say if taught in the appropriate context. A few examples of this are Ephesians 2:8-9 absent of verse 10, and John 10:28-30 absent of verse 27 which tells us who these verses apply to. And then we have Romans 10:9-10 taken totally out of the context of the whole of Romans, particularly missing the messages in Romans 6 and in Romans 8. And that is deceptive.
Now, again, not everything that is “short” is bad. And not everything that has any length to it is bad, either. Either one can be bad or good depending upon the message being conveyed. But the shorter it is the greater risk there is for not giving the full message of the gospel, and the greater opportunity there is for people to twist the Scriptures to their advantage and to deceive and to promote misimpressions (indirect lies), which are harder to prove. And there is much evidence of this in so many social media memes.
Now all of us who believe in Jesus Christ are to preach (proclaim) the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. We are all to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth in preserving and in shining the light of the truth of the gospel to the people of the world. For we, as the Lord’s disciples, are to make disciples of Christ of people of all nations, baptizing them (where possible) and teaching them to obey all that our Lord has commanded us. And we are all to be his witnesses in taking the message of the gospel to the people of the world, but the true gospel.
[Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20; John 4:31-38; John 13:13-17; John 14:12; Acts 1:8; Acts 26:18; Rom 10:14-15; 1 Pet 2:9,21; 1 John 2:6]
Now we should all be aware that Jesus Christ was/is God the Son, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that he always existed with God, and that he is our creator God. But he left his throne in heaven, came to earth, and was born as a human baby to a human mother, but conceived of the Holy Spirit. So while he lived on the earth he was God incarnate, both fully man and fully God. And at the age of 33 he was crucified on a cross to die for the sins of the entire world.
[Isaiah 53:1-12; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 26:26-29; Lu 9:23-26; Lu 17:25; Jn 1:1-36; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 8:24,58; Jn 10:27-33; Jn 20:28-29; Rom 5:8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 9:5; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 11:23-32; 1 Co 15:1-8; 2 Co 5:15,21; Eph 4:17-24; Php 2:5-11; Col 2:9; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 1:8-9; Heb 2:14-15; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Pet 1:1; 1 John 3:4-10]
But Jesus did not give his life up for us on that cross just so we could be forgiven our sins, and just so we could go to heaven when we die. He died that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, that we might deny self, die daily to sin, and walk in obedience to his commands, and that we might no longer walk in sin. So if we profess him as Lord with our lips, but we continue walking in sin, and not in righteousness, and not in obedience to his commands, then we don’t know him, and we don’t have eternal life in him. And that is the essence of the message of the gospel of Christ. See:
[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Peter 1:15; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]
As the Deer
By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70
Caution: This link may contain ads
No comments:
Post a Comment